


Lessons in Humanity

by sobrecogimiento



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, mentions of Dean and Balthazar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-17
Updated: 2011-05-17
Packaged: 2017-10-19 12:06:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/200680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sobrecogimiento/pseuds/sobrecogimiento
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of "The Man Who Would Be King", Sam calls Cas down for research assistance. Things get a little heated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lessons in Humanity

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: Spoilers for 6.20.

That last confrontation with Dean leaves him scared and deeply shaken, in desperate need of a modicum of comfort. Castiel wants nothing more than to visit his favourite heaven and lose himself for awhile in the quiet sunshine of that eternal Tuesday afternoon, but he knows his followers will find him there, with questions he can’t answer and tasks he isn’t prepared to carry out. He could go to Balthazar, his loyal second, possibly the only angel besides him who understands free will, but no, he can’t. His brother needs to believe in him as much as Castiel needs to believe in himself, maybe more. He will laugh off Castiel’s doubts with a brush of useless practicality and tell him to get over it, this is their best hope, he is their best hope. He is relegated to sitting on a park bench with his feet in the snow, talking to a most-likely absent father who, for some unfathomable reason, brought him back, gave him Grace when his was used up. After, he has nowhere, and he hovers uncertainly between heaven and earth, running, hiding.

He does not expect the call from Sam, but he goes anyway, stupidly hopeful. He’s on guard now, and he’s certain they won’t trap him again, if that’s the plan, but when Sam called, he said he was alone and just wants to talk. Castiel trusts him that far because he needs to; it’s more than he thought either Winchester would ever give him again. He lands in a motel room, which a cursory glance tells him is empty save for Sam, standing grim and tired before him in grey sweatpants and a navy blue V-neck t-shirt. It seems to emphasise how big he is, which Castiel always found a little overwhelming, a little oversized, for a human. His true form may be the size of a skyscraper, but here, in his vessel, Sam has always managed to make him feel just a bit small.

The room contains only one bed, rumpled sheets that say it’s been used for at least a few nights. “Where’s Dean?” he asks, part caution, part concern.

“He’s a few states out, tracking down some leads,” Sam responds. “I told him I needed a week or two to myself, and after the bombshell you dropped about how I got out of the Pit, it was pretty easy to convince him.”

It’s a deliberate jibe, and he lets it pass. He deserves as much. “Why did you call me?”

“Well, if you’re up to it, I need some help,” Sam says. “I’m a little lost in translation.” He gestures to the table behind him, covered in a mess of books and papers save for the square reserved for Sam’s laptop. Upon closer inspection, Castiel sees that the vast majority of it is Enochian, some in obscure scripts and dialects, most accompanied by pages with notes in English, in Sam’s painstakingly neat handwriting.

“What are you trying to do?” he asks. The papers are a muddled, confused mess, with topics ranging from summoning to warfare, as far as he can tell.

“I’m trying to help you,” Sam says. “You kill Raphael, and it’s over, right? No more war, no more busting a hole in the side of purgatory?”

“Yes,” Castiel admits. “Killing Raphael is the only sure way of averting another near-apocalypse. Unfortunately, the souls in purgatory are the only thing I know with enough power to defeat him.”

“Well, I think you’re thinking too big,” Sam tells him with a humourless half-smile. “You and Dean trapped him with holy fire before; we can do it again. So, we bring him down to Earth, trap him, and kill him.”

“Sam—” he begins, and sighs, exasperated. “Raphael is an archangel. He’s more powerful than me, and more powerful than you can imagine. He’s not going to fall for that trick twice.”

“He will if we force him,” he insists. “If we can make him pop up when and where we want him, he’s dead. We trap him, and you run him through with this.” Sam leans closer as he talks, voice dropping conspiratorially low, and suddenly his hand is reaching inside Castiel’s trenchcoat, and that—well, there are certain physiological responses that come with being in a human body that he’s sure he’ll never get used to. His heart pounds in his ears and his mouth is desert-dry as Sam takes hold of his angel’s blade, and he remembers Meg, the demon, kissing her roughly as she stole the same weapon. Unbidden, the image of Sam’s mouth under his rises to his mind, but no, it would be the opposite then, Sam grabbing him and pushing him against the wall as he’d once done to her. He’s lightheaded with want and Sam taps his shoulder with his blade to emphasise his point, and then hands it back to him.

“I don’t know if such a ritual exists,” he says, distraught and all but praying that it doesn’t show.

“If there is, I’ll find one,” Sam counters, and he’s still within the boundary of what Dean would call ‘personal space’. If his physiological responses are anything to go by, Castiel is beginning to understand the concept. “And if not, I’ll make one.”

Castiel takes half a step back, turning to the side. It’s self-defence, but against what, he isn’t prepared to contemplate. “Why are you doing this, Sam?”

“Because I get it,” Sam answers, with such vehemence that Castiel is left staring. “The entire world’s about to come crashing down around your ears with everything you care about and everything you’ve worked for, and suddenly a demon comes in with a sure-fire solution that sounds too good to be true. It’s a stupid idea, and it’s dangerous, but you don’t actually have a lot of options, so you trust them. About as far as you can throw them, yeah, but you still trust them. I know you talked to Dean,” he adds with a wry grin, “because the next morning he was bitching about how the angel warding didn’t work. And I know he told you not to just because—because he knows there’s a good chance this is gonna end badly, but that isn’t exactly helping you right now. You need answers, not a morality lesson. I’ve been there, Cas, and I know where this road leads. I’m trying to help you, so let me help you.”

Castiel shakes his head in resignation and turns again to the books and papers cluttering Sam’s makeshift desk. He might as well humour him for the moment; he recognises that particular breed of Winchester stubbornness in the uncompromising expression on his face and knows any efforts to reason with him would be a lost cause. He begins to rifle through the papers aimlessly, but something about the precision catches his attention. “When did you start this translation?” he asks.

“A few days ago,” Sam says, with a too-casual shrug. “Why?”

“You seem to have made quite a bit of progress,” he muses. The notes, scant as they are, display an almost impossible knowledge of Enochian, for a human.

“Sometimes . . .” Sam fidgets, clearly nervous. “Sometimes, if I don’t think about it, I just . . . know what is says.”

“Sam—” Castiel begins warningly.

“I know,” Sam cuts in. “I figured it has to do with—you know. If the wall’s gonna break, it’s gonna break. I’ve done worse things to it in the past few months. Anyway, that’s why Dean isn’t here. That and the fact that you aren’t exactly his favourite person lately.”

“Sam, I owe you an apology,” Castiel says, and he wishes he were brave enough to face him, but he’s reduced to staring grimly at his shoes.

“Cas, you don’t—” Sam tries to interrupt, but the angel speaks over him.

“I was arrogant,” he confides. “Reckless. I did not purposefully raise you without a soul, but I should have known that something was wrong when you didn’t go to your brother. I should have done something. But I told myself that you must have your reasons, that you needed time, and then I went back to heaven, and with what I found there, I. I told myself I had more important things to worry about.”

“You shouldn’t have brought me back,” Sam tells him, voice rough and broken.

“How can you say that?” Castiel demands. He wasn’t expecting forgiveness, not exactly, but surely Sam can’t be that much of a martyr.

“Look, maybe it wasn’t fair,” Sam says, “and maybe the punishment didn’t fit the crime, but I signed up for that. I knew what I was getting myself into. What I didn’t sign up for was walking around soulless for a year doing god knows what because I can’t even remember it, and having this wall in my head that could come crashing down whenever the hell it wants to and leave me a drooling mess. And I definitely didn’t sign up for my brother holding the hand of a coma patient lying in a hospital bed for the rest of his life because he’s convinced that someday I’ll wake up and be his brother again.”

Sam’s eyes are bright with unshed tears, and it causes an unexpected throb of pain in his chest. “If it happens, I don’t think I can forgive you for that,” he finishes quietly.

“I couldn’t just leave you in hell,” Castiel protests.

“Yeah?” He lifts his chin defiantly. “Why not?”

“You have to ask me,” he says, incredulous. “I don’t know, Sam, I thought you deserved a better reward for saving the world against nearly impossible odds than an eternity of torture at the hands of Michael and Lucifer.”

Sam gives no response besides a sharp, single shake of his head, but Castiel can feel the anger and self-loathing pouring off of him in waves. Lucifer’s vessel, he thinks. The boy with the demon blood. Always guilty for things he couldn’t, or could barely, control.

“You didn’t deserve that,” Castiel asserts, taking a few steps closer until he has to tilt his head back to look at him. “You didn’t deserve hell any more than your brother—”

He’s cut off by a sudden lack of air, and it takes him a minute to realise that it’s from Sam, pulling on his tie so tight he can’t breathe, that he’s on his toes from the force of it, so close their faces are a scant few inches apart. Even as he struggles for air, he has to admire Sam’s resourcefulness; any other attack would have been useless at best, but this is disorientating, astounding. It’s a reminder of how fragile humans are, the enormous necessities they take for granted.

“I didn’t call you here because I wanted a lecture,” Sam whispers darkly, exhaling over his lips. That and the oxygen deprivation are causing his brain to take awful, traitorous routes, and he’s thinking more about the sins associated with succumbing to temptation than how easy it would be for Sam to reach for the weapon inside his trenchcoat and run him through. “I called you because I needed help. Now, either help me,” he snarls, accompanied by a particularly vicious tug, “or get out.”

At the moment, Castiel does neither because Sam is too close and he can’t think and he can’t breathe, so he allows himself to fall those few inches forward and kiss him. He fumbles and it’s awkward and he doesn’t quite know how to move his mouth, but then he gets Sam’s bottom lip caught in his teeth and it’s soft and chapped and then Sam makes this muffled noise of abandon and drops his tie only to cradle his head in those huge hands and really starts kissing him back. He tastes like mint, and underneath that, something sugary, and the things he’s doing with his tongue are making Castiel’s head spin. After what feels like an eternity but still isn’t long enough, he lets go and they break away, panting.

“Huh,” Sam intones, considering, and Castiel wonders if he looks closer to mortified or desperate. He feels both.

“Have you . . . done that before?” Sam asks finally, a perfect balance between confused and intrigued.

“No. Not like that,” Castiel amends hastily. He doesn’t think Balthazar counts—his brother had kissed him before, when they were in vessels, but that was a brief, chaste greeting, just an affectionate form of his usual exuberance.

Sam tilts his head and regards him, gaze cryptic. “Do you want to try it again?”

He hesitates for a second, and then nods, his insides twisted up in excitement and fear. Sam approaches him slowly this time, brings a hand up to the side of his face before leaning in. It starts out gentle, slow press of lips and a hint of tongue, but Sam’s enthusiasm takes the better of him and Castiel is quick to reciprocate. The second time they pause for breath, his hands are fisted in Sam’s hair and he has no memory of how that happened, of how Sam’s arms ended up around his waist, pulling their bodies together.

“We can do more,” Sam tells him, pressing kisses to the line of his jaw and down his neck, sucking what will probably be a bruise into the skin.

“O-ok,” he gasps, because his body is screaming for, for something. For whatever Sam wants to give him.

Sam drags his own shirt off and then pushes Castiel’s trenchcoat off his shoulders before starting on his tie. He almost wants to tell him to leave it on, so he can use it the way he did earlier, but his voice is caught and he can’t find the words. Sam undoes his shirt buttons one by one, too slow, while kissing him thoroughly, and then leads him over to the bed, sits on the edge while Castiel stands above him, and then his deft, long fingers go to work on his pants.

“I want to fuck you,” Sam announces brokenly, mouthing along his naked hip. He leans back far enough to look him in the eye, and asks, “That ok?”

“Yes,” he responds shakily, almost before Sam is done speaking. He knows what it entails, mechanically, from his past millennia of observing mankind. Many of his brothers and sisters had regarded the sex act contemptuously, citing it as an example of humanity’s insatiable appetite for earthly pleasures, but he’d only been curious, curious as to what could provoke that sort of reaction.

Sam grins at him, fiercely joyful, and then proceeds to yank his pants and underwear the rest of the way off his hips and lick a slow, teasing line up his painfully hard cock before swallowing him down. Castiel gasps, grabs hold of Sam’s shoulders for support and inadvertently thrusts deeper into his throat. He gags a little, and Castiel wants to apologise, but it comes out as a moan because Sam doesn’t even pause, just keeps taking him, tongue working along his length.

He comes down his throat soon after, orgasm hitting him like a freight train, and his knees give out on him because he wasn’t aware anything could feel so good. The world fades to grey, and he’s dimly aware of Sam catching him and laying back on the mattress. When he comes to, the rest of his clothes are gone, and there’s a very large and very naked Sam over him, kissing his mouth like he’s starving for it. He tastes salty and bitter and Castiel shudders when he realises that’s him because Sam just—“Fuck,” he mutters, and Sam chuckles.

Sam is beautiful. He’d noticed this before in a perfunctory way, but the truth of it shocks him now, when Sam’s hovering over him, all smooth, strong lines. Not for the first time, he wonders what he’d look like as an angel—humans have been exalted before, and although it’s extremely rare, a small part of him has hoped that if God ever did return and begin caring about his creation, he’d raise up the Winchesters. Castiel won’t delude himself into thinking that it’s anything but a selfish desire. He’s scared that if they do manage to avoid this world-ending calamity and however many others, Sam and Dean will disappear into their own, shared heaven when they die, so bound up in each other that he won’t be able to reach them. The thought makes him unbearably lonely, and he pulls Sam closer, needing contact.

The first touch of cold, lubed fingers against his ass makes him squirm away instinctively, but Sam murmurs, “Shhh, relax, relax,” and he does, forcing his legs apart and letting him in. A finger sinks in, working him open, and it’s strange and invasive and unbearably good. Sam adds two more fingers before he’s ready, finds something inside him in the process that makes him gasp, back arching off the bed. Castiel is half-hard again by the time Sam slicks up and pushes in with a choked-off curse, cock filling the rest of the way as he begins thrusting in earnest, repeatedly finding that thing inside him that makes sparks dance behind his eyes. He comes again just from that, and Sam kisses him, hard, fucks him through his orgasm and finishes with a groan, spilling inside him.

Sam collapses on top of him, heavy, but Castiel can’t bring himself to ask him to move, just lies there absently, running his hands down Sam’s sweat-slick back, tangling fingers in his hair. He eventually rolls off of his own accord, stretches out next to him, and grins. Castiel tries to return the look, but he feels wet and open and vaguely unclean, and he’s still suspended in a state of disbelief over what they’ve just done.

“Well,” Sam says, after a minute. “That was unexpected.”

Castiel laughs shortly at the understatement, surprise and nerves.

“Come on,” Sam says, standing and taking hold of his wrist. “Let’s get cleaned up.”

He’s about as well-versed in the area of human bathing practices as he was about sex an hour before, but as he discovers, it’s not wholly unpleasant. Castiel lets Sam wash him and kiss him under the shower’s spray, and he’s amazed, still floating in the aftermath, Sam never ceases to amaze him.

After, Sam pulls Castiel back into bed with him and promptly falls asleep, and it’s customary for humans, he knows that, but he feels slightly uncomfortable, out of place. He lies there for awhile, and dares to entertain the notion that this means he might be forgiven, if only in the smallest capacity. He decides not to push his luck, and after Sam’s breathing evens out to quiet snores, he gets up and heads over to the table in the corner and finishes the incomplete translations. It doesn’t take him long, and by when Sam wakes again he’s dressed, prepared to leave. He’s been gone from heaven too long, wasted enough time, and now, he feels that more clearly than ever.

“I finished your notes,” Castiel tells him. His voice sounds too formal, too distant. “I don’t believe I found anything of assistance.”

“Mmmm,” Sam yawns. “C’mere.”

He goes, slow shuffling of feet, to where Sam’s sitting, propped up against the pillows. He’s forced to bend awkwardly as Sam pulls him down with a hand on the back of his neck, kisses him for so long his back starts to protest. He’s starting to form a very positive opinion of Sam’s technique, even if his past experience doesn’t afford him any comparison.

“Thanks for translating,” Sam says, releasing him finally.

“I—yes,” he mumbles stupidly. “I must return to heaven. They’ll be needing me.”

Sam nods. “Yeah, I figured. Hey, Cas?”

The question stops him an instant before he leaves, and he turns back to Sam. A lamp on the far side of the room sheds dim light over his bare torso, blankets pooling around his waist. His face is troubled, eyes downcast. “Promise me something,” he says.

“What is it?” Castiel asks, knowing that save a small handful of things Sam is too smart to demand of him in the first place, the answer will be yes.

“If the wall does break, and I do go crazy, and you’re not in the middle of some huge war or something, you find a way to save me,” he says. “And if you can’t, you have to kill me.”

Castiel’s heart jumps into his throat. “Sam—”

“I’m not asking for me, I’m asking for Dean,” Sam cuts him off brusquely. “He’s spent his whole life trying to protect me. He deserves some fucking rest, and if you have to kill me and he blows his brains out, at least he’ll get it in heaven.”

“I’ll save you,” Castiel promises. “I’ve prayed that it never happens, but if it does, I’ll save you.”

He owes him that much, and not only because of his mistake, or because Sam saved the world, or out of a sense of loyalty towards Dean, or least of all because of what just happened between them, but because of the notes and yellowed texts covering the corner table, because Sam understands him, because if nothing else, Sam is trying. And that, that may be the best any of them can ever do. It’s what makes them human.

“I’ll hold you to it,” Sam says, and it’s better than thanks.

“Sam,” Castiel says uneasily, “I will still do my best to open purgatory if you can’t find another option.”

Sam grins in response, more of a sneer. “Then we’ll have to do our best to stop you. This doesn’t change that.”

“Crowley doubts the sagacity of underestimating you.” He’s pretty sure he means it as a compliment. “It is one of the few subjects on which I’m inclined to agree.”

“Well, not to brag, but we do have a pretty good track record,” Sam acknowledges. “Just lucky, I guess.”

“Sam, thank you,” he says, resting a hand on his shoulder, swiping his thumb over his collarbone. He means for everything, and Sam knows it. He covers Castiel’s hand with his own.

“Thank you, too,” he replies before letting go. “See you soon, Cas,” he says, and his tone is hopeful.

Castiel presses a quick, final kiss to Sam’s mouth because he can, because this might be the last chance he has, and departs, leaves the darkened motel room behind him and returns to heaven with a thought. His followers are awaiting him in the garden.

It might be his imagination, but the eternal afternoon sunshine isn’t as bright as he remembers, and with a sudden, painful longing, he misses earth.

~End


End file.
